M&D - Chapter 11 pp 109-110

Mon Feb 23 11:54:54 CST 2015

Sorry if I am repeating myself, but I'll take two narrators but repeat
that they are very often coterminous as narrating voices.

And, we must have a judgment on the fact that Cherrycoke calls himself
Unreliable---I say it is Pynchon's easy signal that
his tale is so often a Tall Tale....

Pynchon, in my reading, brings us a tapestry of 'realities', of course
but many in his often irreal way.

Paragraph 4 in Chap 3...the short one that begins "Howsobeit"?
immediately after the first easy three paragraphs? Okay, a primary
narrator virtually able to be seen as the Reverend having heard this
story and retelling it, no?

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 12:33 PM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
>>I just have to figure there are "nested narrators"  in this book<
>
> Sorry if I am repeating myself but until now, p. 111, it seems to me that
> there are only two narrators, one Primary Narrator (to take Upton's term),
> that of the first sentence for example and of the bigger part of paragraph 4
> in chapter 3, to give another one, and Cherrycoke - and I wouldn't call him
> unreliable, not if the word should be more than a truism, because everybody
> - even TRP (who is no narrator but a storyteller, too (albeit a storyteller
> who gives us kind of a tapestry of realities)) - has his limits and we, the
> readers, have to decide if we should trust them or not.
>
>
>
> 2015-02-23 15:38 GMT+01:00 Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>:
>>
>> On Feb 22, 2015, at 9:43 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>> >
>> > I read the "Uncle, Uncle!" interjection as a sign that Cherrycoke had
>> > lapsed into silent revery (or fantasy) about topics inappropriate for his
>> > audience.
>> >
>> > There's a passage on p. 111 (sorry to get ahead!): "Mason gapes in
>> > despair. He'll be days late thinking up any reply to speech as sophisticated
>> > as this. 'In my experience,' he might say ..." But then Mason's whole
>> > conversation with Florinda is recounted. Is the conversation still
>> > conditional: these are the things that Mason might say? Or is this
>> > Cherrycoke's version, aloud, or in revery?
>> >
>> > Laura
>> >
>> Could be!   I just have to figure there are "nested narrators"  in this
>> book and some of them are more apparent than others. I think I'll call
>> Cherrycoke the "story-teller" who becomes an "omniscient narrator"  while
>> he's telling much of the inner story.  But he and his audience are
>> "transported" to his fantasy-land so it all becomes a notch more "real,"
>> especially in the case of Mason.
>>
>> Mason has a huge memory section in a few chapters - when he meets Rebekah
>> and the cheese rolling (one of my really favorite parts of the whole book -
>> memorable).
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> >> From: Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
>> >> Sent: Feb 22, 2015 11:39 AM
>> >> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> >> Subject: M&D - Chapter 11 pp 109-110
>> >>
>> >> Continuing Chapter 11 - in St. Helena - with Maskelyne, Mason & Dixon -
>> >>
>> >> Page 109
>> >>
>> >> Visitors to St. Helena, especially women and other than slaves - almost
>> >> listed and compared to "Birds of Passage":
>> >> Convicts
>> >> Young Wives,
>> >> Company Perpetuals
>> >> (such shuttles upon the loom of Trade as Mrs. Rollright - ah - what an
>> >> apparently appropriate name)
>> >> Mrs. Rollright - aka Florinda - and she recognizes Mason -
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> *** Okay  - someone has to ask it - what's with the little ditties
>> >> strung throughout - and throughout all of PYnchon's work - is this a nod to
>> >> Joyce that really touched the spirit of Pynchon and he couldn't resist?
>> >> Parodies?  Parallax?
>> >>
>> >> I can't copy anything from this source:  "Music in Thomas Pynchon's
>> >> Mason & Dixon"  - it's 36 pages long including Notes.  I didn't have to
>> >> register or anything like that - just asked for .pdf and scrolled down.
>> >> https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/75/170
>> >>
>> >> ***********
>> >> "While other writers, like James Joyce, have invoked parallax as a
>> >> perspectival method in order to challenge univocal narrative form, Pynchon
>> >> works the concept more radically into his fictional treatment of
>> >> historiography.[4] "
>> >>
>> >> More at:  http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.903/14.1burns.html
>> >>
>> >> ****
>> >> Page 110:
>> >>
>> >> **  Some omniscient narrator presents the backstory of Mason takes to
>> >> attending public hangings following Rebekah's death.
>> >>
>> >> "Wapping was also the site of 'Execution Dock', where pirates and other
>> >> water-borne criminals faced execution by hanging from a gibbet constructed
>> >> close to the low water mark. Their bodies would be left dangling until they
>> >> had been submerged three times by the tide.[2]"
>> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping
>> >>
>> >> Lower-situated imitations of the "Hellfire Club"
>> >> Hell-Fire Club -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfire_Club  (of the
>> >> times in England)
>> >> also see:
>> >>
>> >> http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11:_105-115#Page_110
>> >>
>> >> Hangings on Tyburn - here we have the famous gallows - ended in 1783
>> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyburn#Tyburn_gallows
>> >>
>> >> And what a beautiful line:
>> >>
>> >> ** "To the Fabulators of  Grub Street, a licentious night-world of
>> >> Rakes and Whores, surviving only in memories of pleasure, small darting
>> >> winged beings, untrustworthy as remembrancers ... "
>> >>
>> >> (a nod to the untrustworthiness of memory)
>> >> Grub Street:
>> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grub_Street
>> >>
>> >> continuing:   "... yet its infected, fragrant, soiled encounters 'neath
>> >> the Moon were as worthy as any, -  an evil-in-innocence..."
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> (Even though untrustworthy,  memories are valuable in some way -
>> >> "evil-in-innocence"  because memories are like wolves in sheep's clothing? -
>> >>
>> >> ******
>> >> And in a total discontinuance from the narrative although apparently in
>> >> response to it:
>> >> ("Uncle, Uncle!"... )  etc.
>> >> This is Tenebræ and the Cherrycoke kids breaking in, isn't it?
>> >> Probably because Cherrycoke is getting too close to subjects inappropriate
>> >> for the ears of children?  -  "Rakes and Whores" and what not.
>> >>
>> >> *********
>> >>
>> >> Becky
>> >>
>> >> -
>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l